Dear Festival Friends,

“We are narrative creatures.” 

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author Cristina Rivera Garza said that in a 2023 interview, and we hereby ask permission to steal it as a Festival tagline. As we like to say, narratives—stories—make us human. They help us make sense of our lives, and they introduce us to people, places, and ideas beyond our own experience.  

Yet narratives can also trap us. Racism, sexism, classism—all of the isms—are nothing but false narratives that refuse to die. The best writers upend those destructive storylines and replace them with intelligence and empathy. Rivera Garza is one such writer, and it’s our great pleasure to welcome her to this year’s Festival, along with two other storytellers who broaden our understanding of the world and renew our faith in humanity, Marie Arana and Maria Hinojosa. Together, these distinctive Latina voices represent the most thoughtful observers of life in the United States today, and are among our most insightful writers, period.

Widely considered one of Mexico’s greatest contemporary authors, Cristina Rivera Garza examines the lives of those who don’t neatly fit political or cultural norms. Her work is informed by the experiences of her family, which relocated from Mexico to the United States and back again as the political landscape shifted. Though most authors stick to one, maybe two, lanes, Rivera Garza is seemingly a master of all lanes. She’s a novelist, memoirist, essayist, historian, and scholar. In her memoir Liliana’s Invincible Summer, she personalizes the increasing violence against women in Mexico by telling the story of her sister, Liliana, who was just twenty years old when she was murdered by her former boyfriend. The book won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Award. Rivera Garza’s fiction also packs an emotional wallop, with the added allure of psychological unease. Her novella The Taiga Syndrome, which won the 2018 Shirley Jackson Award, combines lyricism with the unhinged darkness of “Hansel and Gretel.” Rivera Garza’s latest novel, published just last week, is Death Takes Me. It’s another shivery journey to the Upside Down, featuring a serial killer and a professor named … Cristina Rivera Garza. As with all of Rivera Garza’s work, the book operates on many levels and will keep your mind churning long after you’ve finished it.

Marie Arana is another legendary Latina powerhouse who’s talented in multiple genres. She, too, is a novelist, memoirist, and historian. She is also the former—and first—literary director of the Library of Congress, and for many years was the editor in chief of Book World at The Washington Post. A Peru native transplanted as a child to New Jersey, Arana understands the complicated nuances of being a Latina American. Her most recent book, the critically acclaimed LatinoLand, is a sweeping portrait of the United States’ “largest and least understood minority,” threaded with Arana’s own family story. The book expands on Arana’s critically acclaimed memoir American Chica, an eloquent account of what it’s like to grow up in two starkly different countries, with two culturally divergent parents, one from the U.S. and one from Peru. American Chica was a finalist for the 2001 National Book Award and the PEN Award for memoir. It, along with Arana’s other work, which includes two celebrated novels and a biography of the South American statesman Simón Bolívar, are testaments to strength in the face of adversity. After too much time spent with today’s headlines, they’re also uplifting reminders of the depth, diversity, and value of the Latino experience.

At the Festival in May, Arana and Rivera Garza will each be in conversation with Maria Hinojosa, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author best known for her ground-breaking public radio show Latino USA. Hinojosa brings attention to stories that are often overlooked or underreported by mainstream media and, in doing so, helps us navigate the complexities of an increasingly diverse and connected world. She has taken home just about every award possible for a journalist. In 2022, her company, the Futuro Media Group, won the Pulitzer for a podcast series about the life of a man reentering society after decades in prison. She has also won the Peabody Award, the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, the Edward R. Morrow Award, and four Emmys. And she has written three books, including a memoir about growing up as a Mexican immigrant in Chicago. For a taste of what are sure to be memorable discussions on our Festival stage, check out Hinojosa’s past interviews with Arana and Rivera Garza.

To see Arana, Rivera Garza, and Hinojosa, along with dozens of other prize-winning authors, including Miranda July, Jonathan Eig, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Colum McCann, and Michael Cunningham, please visit our website. Don’t wait—tickets are going fast!

Board of Directors
Edward Gale, Chair

Janet Bailey | Mark Bryant | Clare Hertel

Jenny Kimball | James McGrath Morris

Carmella Padilla | Jenna Scanlan

Mary Sloane | Maria Gale, Ex Officio

Founders
Clare Hertel | Carmella Padilla | Mark Bryant